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[Yet] General Short had been told the two essential facts: 1) a war with Japan is threatening, 2) hostile action by Japan is possible at any moment. Given these two facts, both of which were stated without equivocation in the message of Nov. 27, the outpost commander should be on the alert to make his fight. . . .
To cluster his airplanes in such groups and positions that in an emergency they could not take the air for several hours, and to keep his antiaircraft ammunition so stored that it could not be promptly and immediately available, and to use his best reconnaissance system, the radar, only for a very small fraction of the day and night, in my opinion betrayed a misconception of his real duty which was almost beyond belief. . . .
I have tried to review these various responsibilities with fairness to both the outpost commander and the Staff officers at home. I am particularly led to do so because of the difficulty of reproducing now the background and atmosphere under which the entire Army was then working.
Our General Staff officers were working under a terrific pressure in the face of global war which they felt was probably imminent. Yet they were surrounded, outside their offices and almost throughout the country, by a spirit of isolationism and disbelief in danger which now seems incredible. . . .
* The War Cabinet agreed that the U.S. must fight if Japan 1) attacked U.S., British or Dutch territory, or 2) moved her forces in Indo-China west of 100° longitude or south of 10° latitude.